SMIF: a format for the offline exchange of Smart Musical Instruments configuration and data

Smart musical instruments (SMIs) are an emerging category of musical instruments characterized by sensors, actuators, wireless connectivity, and embedded intelligence. To date, a topic that has received remarkably little attention in SMIs research is that of defining a file format for the offline exchange of content produced by such instruments. To address this gap, in this paper we propose the Smart Musical Instruments Format (SMIF), a file format specific to smart musical instruments. We also provide an implementation of an encoder, decoder, and player for it. Such a format is not completely fitting any current standard but is strongly inspired by the MPEG-A: Interactive Music Application Format (IM AF). In our implementation we integrated IM AF with tracks related to sensors, MIDI, as well as the representation of the instrument's sound engine via the Smart Musical Instruments Ontology. SMIF enables the creation of novel applications for the offline exchange of SMIs configuration and data, some of which are illustrated in the paper.